I remember Mrs. Schorr as very capable, very calm. The envelope that holds my fifth-grade report card holds a note from her to my dad (on a note-card, in an envelope, of course), thanking him for a card he had made for her. Mrs. Schorr was wishing us well on leaving the city for New Jersey: “Brooklyn will be losing a fine family!” What a gracious and generous thing to say.

As a kid, I liked the effect that the horrible lighting had on the boys in the top row: it gave them long hair. Looking at this photograph now, I wonder whether Albert’s shirt pocket (third row, middle) was holding what we called an I.D. wallet. Such wallets were accessories in our work as school-aged secret agents in The Black Cat Club. (Secret agents always carry I.D., right?) And I now remember something I haven’t thought of in years: a lunch hour during which Donald (top row, left) and I stood on safety patrol and I told him what menstruation was. My mom and dad believed in reality-based parenting — no birds, no bees, no storks.

That concludes class pictures at Orange Crate Art. In the suburbs of New Jersey, all school pictures were of individual students. So the class picture was a set of separate little rectangles on a white background, young suburbanites each with her or his own little bit of property.

[I’m uneasy about identifying fellow fifth-graders by last name without permission, so I haven’t. These photographs have faded and remain so here, as unimproved scans. I’m the kid in the second row, left, looking rather short.]

Michael.....it's me...Eddie W I hope you remember me....You look astonishly the same afetr all these years! Thank you so much for the memories...I have been in contact with Keith, Melinda, Nadine, Geri, Sherry and of course george B and it has been a blast!! heres my email if you get a chance to writemistered918@optonline.net

“Orange Crate Art” is a song by Van Dyke Parks and the title of a 1995 album by Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. “Orange Crate Art” is for me one of the great American songs: “Orange crate art was a place to start.”

Don’t look for premiums orcoupons, as the cost ofthe thoughts blended inORANGE CRATE ART pro-hibits the use of them.